http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:08:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm a big believer in tree karma. After all, I spend much of the winter at high altitude pruning trees in the canopy. (Don't tell my mom-she still worries about running with scissors, so she wouldn't be so into climbing with chainsaws). So do the trees still like me? I ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/11/20/tree-karma/ Astute observers yesterday probably thought we in the landscape department had lost our mind. Middle of November, and we're mowing the lawn. We were chopping leaves. It's really the ideal way to recycle leaves, to put them back into the ground from whence they came, as it were. A Michigan State ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/11/19/leaf-chopping/ In the previous  No-Mow post, I wrote about the expense of planting the areas to native wildflowers, and how we'd hoped to manage in such a way that they might just come around. Well, as it turns out, most of the world is smarter than I, and someone named Molly ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/11/17/planting-no-mow/ There are two issues when writing about Ginkgoes. One is giving an accurate sense of smell, the other of time. The easiest one is smell. And the culprit would be the seeds. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="512" caption="Ginkgo Fruit"][/caption] The tree is dioecious, meaning they have separate sexes, male and female trees. All horticultural ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/11/04/ginkgo/ It's raining tonight, and the wind is going to howl tomorrow. By all means, if you live out of state, come up tomorrow and see the last bit of foliage around as it goes flying past your window at 40 MPH. If you can't make it, here's some final fall ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/10/30/the-last-gasp-of-fall/ Landscaping is pretty non-controversial, for the most part. After all, we’re out there, in all weather, making things better. Healthier trees, mown grass, clean and safe walkways, to name just a couple of things we do. In fact, I dare say, we’re only unpopular one time of the year, and ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/10/24/leaf-blowers-an-apology-of-sorts/ We're on the downhill side of fall foliage at Middlebury now, but here's some pictures while it lasts. [nggallery id=21] http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/10/18/fall-foliage-pictures/ I fear this may be the last post this year about things in bloom. I was trekking across a tiny dusting of snow on top of Mt. Abe on Monday after all. There are plenty of things in bloom: asters, Japanese Anemone, still some Black Eyed Susan. But I'm writing ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/10/14/witch-hazel/ The foliage is peaking now in Middlebury, and it's pretty spectacular. My prediction was part true-the color is great this year, but the timing seems pretty normal to me. Anyway, I was gone for all of last week (in the Ozarks and Nebraska, where there are spectacular oaks, but, like ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/10/13/full-fall-color/ The college weather station was down yesterday, related to the couple of power failures over the weekend. (One power failure at 3 in the morning, then 2 hours Sunday afternoon for an insulator repair) So, for those of you keeping track, my house in Weybridge (7 miles away, close enough) ... http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/09/28/yesterdays-rain/